Sounds like such a simple question doesn’t it? When I first read that question in Living the Savvy Life by Melissa Tosetti and Kevin Gibbons I felt like I got struck by lightning. Why had I never thought that before? I realized it did not just apply to shopping for food at the local supermarket. Although I have begun shopping for ingredients at the local Publix and my bill has gone down and we have less wasted food! Plus grocery shopping is less stressful and there are fewer trips back for things I need to prepare the meals.
When you begin to apply ingredient shopping to business you can see how buying a new computer, or a book, or adding an employee or taking on a new client is really just grocery shopping unless you have a plan before you do that. When I ran my I.T. services firm, I was often called by clients who wanted us to install a new computer or printer. I would never just take the order. We always tried to find out what they were going to use it for so we could look at the bigger picture and see how the new technology fit into their business plan. Most of the time they couldn’t answer us.
They just wanted the new computer or printer because one had died or they were adding staff or because they saw a really cool ad on TV and wanted something new. Sometimes this is ok but we began to see shifts in our clients businesses when we engaged with them and understood their dreams and goals for their businesses. Instead of just getting them a computer or a printer, we got them a solution that moved them forward in their plans.
Sometimes we discovered they did not need a new employee because several of their employees were spending half their day playing computer games or surfing the web for personal things. Once that got resolved they had more productive staff and did not need that new computer or employee. Sometimes they really did just need a new computer or printer but the conversations were always fun and energizing and were great reminders to keep the end goal in mind on a daily basis.
My book, What Would a Wise Woman Do? Questions I Should Have Asked Along the Way just got accepted by Morgan James Publishing and my agent, Michael Ebeling, keeps reminding me to finish the book before I work on the marketing for it because if I don’t, there will be nothing to market. It is easy to get distracted and buy another DVD or coaching program to learn from but that would just be buying groceries unless I have my book finished. That is one of the key ingredients to my business. Without it, it would be like Thanksgiving without a turkey!
When you look at your business, are you buying groceries or ingredients to fulfill your dreams and goals? Tell me what this post means for you.